A cold, damp morning of november, enough so that every breath expelled would come out as a thick, near opaque fog, something a seven year old Kurt Celik is being made witness of with every swing of his training sword.

  He was training on his lonesome. Most of the members of the order hadn't woken up yet, and the ones that had didn't try to join him or question him. Good, he didn't need them bothering him in his training. His bare feet were planted in the wet grass, and his toes dug themselves in the soil below for support when he practiced a lunge or a slash.

  He was technically infringing the order's code of conduct by doing this: Weapons, even the ones made out of wood that were used for training, weren't supposed to be taken out the armory, and much less to be used within the order's grounds.

  No one did anything about it. Most of the other members, even the ones older than him, didn't dare approach him, least he try to reenact his performances on combat practice upon them. As for his sister and fath-Mr. Anderson, possibly the only two- maybe three if he counted Abbigail, though given how inexpressive she was it was difficult to tell whether she was or wasn't- members of the order not scared of him, they didn't do anything about it either.

  That last part confused him, if he was being honest. Blair was a stickler for the rules and codes of the order, and had the kind of temper that could cower pretty much anyone in the order without need for her to use sorcery of any kind. As for Mr. Anderson, while less strict and much less temperamental than his daughter, he was no pushover, not in the least. He was the kind of man that spoke measuredly and calmly ninety-nine percent of the time, with the remaining one percent being more than enough to make people more scared of the prospect of truly angering him than they were of Blair.

  And yet, they did nothing to stop his flagrant breach of code, no matter how long he had been doing it. It wasn't fear, he was sure of that. No, they didn't try to discipline him, or even talking to him about it, because they didn't care if he had a weapon on common grounds. What could he do with it? Hurt someone? He knew they didn't take him seriously, no matter how much he trained or how many of his 'peers' he bested on the ring, they thought him harmless. Harmless and weak. Just a kid lashing out at the world for his mother's death.

  A ball of rage began forming in his throat, and he dispelled with a wide slash. Idiots. Patronizing, arrogant idiots. He would show them just how 'weak' he was when he became the strongest warrior in the order, stronger even that Mr. Anderson, without any of their stupid magical gifts, just his own talent and effort. Everyone here thought they were better than him, from the youngest children to Anderson himself, because they were magic and special and he wasn't. He knew, he just fucking knew, that people laughed at his back, or thought that he shouldn't even be in the order. But he would show them, he would...

  "E-Excuse me?" Came a voice from behind him, weak and high pitched, interrupting his thoughts.

  He turned and saw a little girl, maybe about his age or younger, looking at him timidly. She was a short, pale thing, with eyes of a startlingly clear blue and short, white hair that was rather disheveled, with a few strands randomly poking from it. The girl was wearing a pink sweater and a pair of grey sweatpants, both looking a couple sizes too big for her. Kurt noticed one of her hands clutching the lower rim of her sweater with enough strength to make her knuckles become even whiter than the rest of her skin.

  If memory served Kurt right, this girl was a new addition, rescued and brought to the order a few months ago. He certainly didn't remember seeing her around much. What was her name again?

  "Yeah?" He answered dryly. "What do you want?"

  The girl winced at his tone, but pushed on. "Talk." she said somewhat slowly, as if she was using the word for the first time. "I want to... talk. With you."

  "Abouth what?" He asked bluntly, rising an eyebrow at the strange girl.

  "About, uhm, stuff!" The girl said, looking rather proud with her ability to remember the word 'stuff'. "I wanna talk with you about stuff!"

  "What stuff?" He asked, irritated at the strange girl. "What do you want to talk about in specific?"

  The girl blinked in confusion. "Speciefic?" She asked, looking more nervous by the second. She then looked aside, and put a very unconvincing look of confidende. "Yeah, we can talk about speciefic stuff. I know lot about that."

  What? What the hell was she talking abou-?

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Oh, she was messing with him. The few months she had been in the order seemed to be enough for her to side with the 'Let's make fun of Kurt' club that every one of these fuckers seemed to be part of. Another ball of rage formed in his throat, and this time he let it be released from his mouth.

  "Oh yeah? Then why don't you go talk about 'speciefic' stuff with one of your friends?" he said, tone caustic enough to make the girl wince. "I don't have time for your jokes, so why don't you go with the pranking somewhere else before I decide to use you as a practice dummy?!"

  The girl didn't answer to his threat, but she didn't run away either. No, instead, she stood were she was like a deer on the headlights, and Kurt began to wonder if she was going to try to keep messing with him.

  She didn't. Instead, after a brief period where her jaw began trembling, she broke in tears. Messily and loudly, like a toddler. One of her hands was still clutching her sweater, even more firmly now, and the other had gone up her face, its back pressed right below her right eye, as if she was trying to push the tears back in.

  Suddenly, Kurt wasn't so sure that she was trying to pull one on him. His rage went away as fast as it had come, replaced with rapidly increasing feelings of shame and guilt.

  "H-Hey!" He called, dubitative. "I wasn't gonna hit you, I promise! I just wanted to be left alone! I'm sorry!"

  The girl kept bawling her eyes out, so loudly that Kurt was pretty sure she hadn't even heard him. "I-I'm shorryyy!" She managed to stammer between breaths. "I just wanted... to make friend!"

  Make friend? With him? Was that really what she had been trying to do?

  God dammit. Now he really felt like shit. No wonder everyone hated him, if this was how he treated the ones that didn't.

  "Hey! It's okay, really!" He tossed his sword aside, and began approaching the girl. "I-I got confused, that's all! Your attemp was great, it's just that I'm an idiot!"

  He laughed nervously at his own joke, but the girl kept crying.

  Idiot?, his brain asked, Just look how little it took you to completely destroy this little girl. You're not an idiot. You are a fucking genius at being an asshole.

  Now he felt like he wanted to cry too.

  Crying. What do you do when someone's crying? When had been the last time he had cried? His mother's pale, boney face, ruined by the chemotherapy, appeared on his mind's eye, as clear as when he had actually seen it half a year ago. Right, then. He had been alone in his room when he finally broke down, but what had he desperately wanted for someone, anyone, to do for him then?

  The answer came to his body before it reached his brain, and before he knew it, Kurt found himself hugging the girl before him, pressing her small,trembling frame against his. She was short enough that when he pulled her in, her face was pressed against his chest. Surprisingly, the girl actually accepted the hug, looping her own arms around his torso, and pulling herself even closer.

  Little by little, her sniffling died down, and when though the time was right, Kurt let go of her. She kept her hug a few seconds before catching that he had broken his, but she finally stepped back... giving Kurt a prime view of the tear and snot stains she had left on his shirt. A thin trail of the, uhm, 'stuff' still connected her right nostril with the garment.

  They stared at it in confused silence until it collapsed, leaving another small stain on his shirt and making her face a bit more of a mess. The girl began heaving rapidly, as if in panic, and her fear at his reaction was clear on her face.

  "It's okay! It's okay!" He reasured her hurriedly. "I can just go get changed, so it's not a big deal! I swear I'm not mad!"

  This seemed to help calm the girl down,at least a bit, and she was soon back at the state she had been before their conversation: Looking timidly at him. This time though, and despite the puffines in her eyes and the clear snot staining her face, he couldn't help but find her very cute.

  After slapping himself mentally for that thought, he began talking again. She had said she wanted to be friends with him, right? "Look, I'm going to go get another shirt from my house." He pointed at the building in question, a two-story tall, old-style wooden house built at the top of the hill, so that it oversaw the entire valley in which the order's settlement had been built, placed between it and the nearest road so that all trafic between the outside and the order had to pass through it. "Then we can... do something together, if you want. Something like..." He began trailing off, and his eyes went to the grass the girl was standing on for some reason. It was overgrown, at least thrice as tall as the grass around it, and thrice as tall as it had been a minute before. Was her magic nature-related? "... take a hike through the forest and... picking flowers?"

  He almost kicked himself for the sugary plan he had just proposed her. Almost, because the girl's huge smile gave him pause before he could do it.

  "I'd love to!" She exclaimed, delighted. But then, her expression became serious, or at least as much as a seven year old with snot still on her face could manage. "But no picking flowers! It hurts them!"

  "Them?" Asked the boy, confused. "And who's them, exactly?"

  With her cheeks puffed, the girl took a few steps back, and pointed effusively at the patch of grass she had been standing on. The whole thing began glowing and expelling some kind of green, glittering mist.

  "Them!" She exclaimed, pointing at the green cloud.

  "Okay... so no picking flowers, just hiking." The girl's smile returned in full, and she nodded enthusiastically. Kurt founfd himself smiling back at her. "Cool. So let me put my shoes on and I'll come back in a minute."

  He then turned his back on her, put on his shoes, and began making his way to his house as quickly as he could. Or at least he tried to, because a small, soft hand closed around his wrist and stopped him. He turned, and saw the girl looking at him. Before he could say anything, she moved her grasp from his wrist to his hand proper, holding it with their fingers interlocked.

  "Together." she said simply.

  He was about to object, but then he saw the look on her eyes. She was looking at him, of all people, as if he were the most amazing thing in the world, an invaluable treasure she was lucky to have and that she didn't want to stop looking at for even a second.

  Heat rose to his face, and he said nothing. Instead, he took a pack of tissues he had on his pocket and offered it to her. "Here." he said. "For your face."

  "Thanks!" The girl said, taking one of the tissues and quickly bringing it to her face.

  "You're welcome, uhm... I'm sorry, what's your name?"

  "Mila!" she said chirply, still cleaning her face. "And you are Kurt! I know that!"

  "That you do." He conceded, chuckling. Without knowing why, he squeezed the girl's very soft hand, and rubbed his thumb on the back of it. "Wanna get going. We are losing time for our hike!"

  The girl gasped, eyes widening, and she quickly crumpled the tissue she was using and put it I one of her sweatpant's pockets. "You're right! We gotta go, quick!"

  And going she did, darting uphill towards the building so suddenly that she actually dragged Kurt along for a few yards before his legs caught up. Through this entire situation, the boy found himself laughing heartly, not even thinking of the sword he had left behind. He forgot it completely when the gir-Mila began laughing with him.